Hammerdown Festival will be launchpad for new bands in Worthing

As Harry says, in an over saturated market, he and his band weren't able to progress – and that's why he has created a festival to give exactly that kind of opportunity to the next bands coming through, mixing the up-and-coming bands with the more established performers and treating them all as rock stars.

Hammerdown Festival returns to Worthing with a brand-new home for 2023. On the final weekend of July, The Factory Live, a 285-capacity music venue, will welcome a host of alternative bands as they set the stage for 20 original artists who will be performing back-to-back across one jam-packed weekend. Tickets to Hammerdown Festival are priced at £25 per day or £35 for a weekend ticket. For further information on the full line-up and to buy tickets, visit thefactorylive.co.uk.

Harry, festival managing director, is delighted at the way it has all come together: “I started Hammerdown when I was 17 back in 2015. I just love music. I love alternative music and I love live music but I realised that being in a band came down a lot to luck. I realised you just had to have those opportunities and that's what this festival is about.

“When you start something like this you make a lot of mistakes at first, but the key thing is to source a venue which is something that's very budget dependent. If you had lots of money available, you would be able to have a big open air space, but if you can't, you will end up with a smaller hall but even then you've got to make sure that it's completely right and versatile and completely cater for all the needs you will have. It is not just a gig. It's way longer. And you need different types of security and you will have food vendors in and you've just got to accommodate a completely different kind of event. You've also got to get the right bands and that was quite easy. I'm lucky to be quite well connected in that respect and it wasn't too much of a problem finding bands to play but also you've got to find a gap in the market and we were lucky that they were no rivals doing anything like this anywhere near us. Our first one was in 2015 and we've since played in multiple venues. The first one was Dane Hill village hall in the middle of nowhere and then in 2016 and 17 we were at the Martlets in Burgess Hill and then 2018 was our first year when we came to Worthing and we were at Bar 42. 2019 we took a year out to recoup our funds and then the pandemic happened so we ended up having three years out, 2020 and 2021 as well. 2022 was the first year back and we were at The Venue in Worthing, the biggest one that we had done. It was the first time we did two days. Before that it was just one so we really upgraded and it went really well. We were just shy of breaking even. Most businesses in their first year will make a loss and we had to treat this as our first year in effect so coming close to breaking even was really great for us and that gave us the confidence to do it again and to come back for this year.

“This time we're in The Factory Live and again it's about the versatility of the venue. The music is indoors but we have got a whole outdoor area with seating that we can use. We can have the food trucks on site and we can book a coffee bar coming in. The venue itself is indoor but the outside area means that we can spill outdoors as well.”

This year sees Acres, Ravenface, Fort Hope and Confessions of a Traitor topping the line-up among sixteen other bands (July 29-30).